Albany Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19=
Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in
1773, but he resigned it ten years afterwards. In
1785 he was appointed joint Professor of Mathematics
in the University of Edinburgh with the
celebrated Adam Ferguson, LL.D., and discharged
the duties of that chair till the death of
his friend Professor Robinson, in 1805, when he
was appointed his successor. Among his works
are ? Elements of Geometry ? published in I 796 ;
?Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the
Earth ? in 1804; ?? Outlines of Natural Philosophy;?
besides many papers to the scientific department
of the Edinburgh &view and to various other
periodicals.
He died at No. 2, Albany Street, in his seventieth
year, on the 20th of July, 1819. An unfinished
?? Memoir of John Clerk of Eldin,? the inventor of
naval tactics, left by him in manuscript, was
published after his death in the ninth volume of
the ? Edinburgh Transactions.? An interesting account
of the character and merits of this illustrious
mathematician, from the pen of Lord Jeffrey,
was inserted in the ?? Encyclopzdia Britannica ?
and in the memoir prefixed to his works by his
nephew, and a noble monument to his memory
is erected on the Calton Hill.
Northwards of the old village of Broughton,
in the beginning of the present century, the land
was partly covered with trees ; a road led fkom it
to Canonmills by Bellevue to Newhaven, while
another road, by the water of Leith, led westward.
In the centre of what are now the Drummond
Place Gardens stood a country house belonging
to the Lord Provost Drummond, and long inhabited
by him ; he feued seven acres from the
Governors of Heriot?s Hospital. The approach to
this house was by an avenue, now covered by West
London Street, and which entered from the north
road to Canonmills.
On the site of that house General Scott of Balcolnie
subsequently built the large square threestoreyed
mansion of Bellevue, afterwards converted
into the Excise Office, and removed when the
Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway Company
constructed the now disused tunnel from Princes
Street to the foot of Scotland Street.
In 1802 the l a d s of Bellevue were advertised
to be sold ?by roup within the Justiciary
Court Roomy for feuing purposes, but years
elapsed before anything was done in the way of
building. In 1823 the papers announce that
?? preparations are making for levelling Bellevue
Gardens and filling up the sand-pits in that
neighbourhood, with a view to finishing Bellevue
Crescent, which will connect the New Town with
Canonmills on one side, as it is already connected
with Stockbridge on the other.?
By that year Drummond Place was nearly completed,
and the south half of Bellevue Crescent
was finished and occupied; St. Mary?s parish church
was founded and finished in 1824 from designs b j
Mr. Thomas Brown, at the cost of A13,ooo for
1,800 hearers. It has a spire of considerable elegance,
168 feet in height.
General Scott, the proprietor of Bellevue, was
one of the most noted gamblers of his time. It
is related of him that being one night at Stapleton?s,
when a messenger brought him tidings that Mrs.
Scott had been delivered of a daughter, he turned
laughingly to the company, and said, ?You see,
gentlemen, I must be under the necessity of
doubling my stakes, in order to make a fortune for
this little girl.? He accordingly played rather
deeper than usual, in consequence of which, after
a fiw hours? play, he found himself a loser by
A8,ooo. This gave occasion for some of the
company to rally him on his ?? daughter?s fortune,?
but the general had an equanimity of temper
that nothing could ruffle, and a judgment in play
superior to most gamesters. He replied that he
had still a perfect dependence on the luck of the
night, and to make his words good he played steadily
on, and about seven in the morning, besides
clearing his .&8,000, he brought home A15,ooo.
His eldest daughter, Henrietta, became Duchess
of Portland.
Drummond Place was named after the eminent
George Drummond, son of the Laird of Newton, a
branch of the Perth family, who was no less than
six times Lord Provost of the city, and who died
in 1776, in the eightieth year of his age.
The two most remarkable denizens of this
quarter were Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddam
(previously of 93, Princes Street) and Lord
Robertson.
Among the attractions of Edinburgh during the
bygone half of the present century, and accessible
only to a privileged few, were the residence
and society of the former gentleman. Born of an
ancient Scottish family, and connected in many
ways with the historical associations of his country,
by his reputation as a literary man no less than
by his high Cavalier and Jacobite tenets, Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe was long looked up to as one
of the chief authorities on all questions connected
with Scottish antiquities.
No. 93, Princes Street, the house of Mrs. Sharpe
of Hoddam, was the home of her son till the time
of her death, and there he was visited by Scotc
Thomas Thomson, and those of the next genera
